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Okami Review

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: November 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game on PS2 for my daughter who is 12, and she has had a ball playing it. Though there are English subtitles because it is spoken in very fast Japanese, that doesn't take away from the game's adventures. The instructions given are very clear, and though it does take skill to master some of the tasks, it really is quite enjoyable

Best game in a long time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: February 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

In a world of sequels and rehashed games, Okami is a breath of fresh air.

Okami is one of the best games I've played in a long time. The Japanese art style is fantastic, the music awesome and the gameplay fun. My only small complaint is the game is very easy.

Any gamer that doesn't like Okami should throw his controller in the garbage and quit gaming.

Amazing, Beautiful, Enchanting

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Those are just some words that describe this wonderful game. The graphics are beautiful and mimic japanese water color. Cherry Blossoms float down from the sky as you run across the fields. If you ever need to chill out, pop this baby in.

As I played this game I was so reminded of Zelda: WindWaker and the game has many elements similar to Zelda. So, this game too is as fun, if not more fun than a Zelda game.

The characters are cute and there is humor in the storyline which will have you chuckling. As you restore the dark and dreary land, flowers bloom, rivers flow, and the music becomes inspiring....you'll get chills.

The controls are perfect and the Celstial Brush is so easy to use. I love it.

I recommend this game definitely! If you love Zelda you are sure to love Okami as well. If you enjoy japanese culture you'll love it even more.

WOW a new legendary game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

this is a master piece , its art its beatiful ... where do i start , words don't describe this game .. i love it , the music is wonderful .
this game combines all the the good elements in gaming into a single one ( mystical ninja ( music & weirdness ) + zelda perfection ( and i mean that there are no missable events or items in the game ( although there is only one missable ???? in the game )) + some dragonball ideas ( not power ups ) , i played this game for 133 hours ( of course everything is completed )and i'm sorry it ended ( you can finish the game much faster but i tend to enjoy such masterpieces )...
RESULT : if you love traditional japanese music & culture + perfectly programmed games ... then this game is for you .

best adventure game ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game makes Zelda look weak. the graphics are phenomenal, and the gameplay elements are great too. Not too many people gave this game a chance but I guarantee in ten years people will be talking about this game like it is a classic like how they are talking about symphony of the night now. If you haven't played this game yet go buy it. If you like adventure games you owe it to yourself to at least give it a chance.

An amazing RPG that should not be missed.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 17
Date: December 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Lkami ('^, Lkami?) is a cel-shaded video game developed by Clover Studio for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It was released on April 20, 2006 in Japan and September 19, 2006 in the United States and Canada. It is scheduled for release in Europe on February 9, 2007. Lkami's main character is the Shinto sun goddess named Amaterasu, who has taken the form of a white wolf. The title of the game is a pun; the word Mkami (ü) in Japanese means "wolf", however the kanji characters used as the title of this game ('^), also pronounced as Lkami, meaning "great deity", so the main character is a great wolf deity. The same characters ('^) are also used to write the full name of the goddess Amaterasu-M-mi-kami. Lkami can also be read to mean "big paper", hinting at the game's sumi-e-inspired visual style.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Story
* 2 Gameplay
o 2.1 Weapons
o 2.2 Brush techniques
* 3 Characters
o 3.1 Major characters
o 3.2 Supporting characters
o 3.3 Bosses
* 4 Mythology and folklore
* 5 Music
* 6 Reaction
o 6.1 Reviews
o 6.2 Awards
* 7 Trivia
* 8 References
* 9 External links

[edit] Story

Set in the Nippon region in an unspecified time in the classical Japanese era, Lkami combines several Japanese myths and legends to tell the story of how the land was saved from darkness by the wolf, Amaterasu.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The quiet village of Kamiki, filled with beautiful cherry trees, had a price to pay in order to maintain their peace. Each and every year a festival is held, during which a maiden must be sacrificed to the eight-headed serpent, Orochi, signalled by a white arrow being launched into the house of his chosen sacrifice. In the 100th year since Orochi's arrival, as the time for the sacrifice drew near, a pure white wolf the village dubbed "Shiranui" would appear and stalk the village's streets at night. A swordsman in the village, Nagi (Izanagi in the Japanese version), detested Shiranui, believing him to be one of Orochi's agents, and repeatedly tried to drive the wolf away. When the night of the festival finally arrived, Nagi's beloved, Nami (Izanami in the Japanese version) was chosen to be slain. Determined both to save the woman he loved and to put an end to the village's burden, Nagi went to Orochi's lair to slay the beast. Alas, he was defeated and about to be killed when Shiranui stepped in and took over the battle. Using strange skills, the wolf battled valiantly against Orochi, but still could not defeat the serpent.

Battered and beaten, Shiranui released a powerful howl the heavens. Strengthened by the howl, Nagi struggled to his feet and took up his sword once more, leaping onto Orochi and defeating the creature. Shiranui, filled with poison and fur dyed crimson with his own blood, was carried back to the village by Nagi where he was praised as Kamiki's savior - and then died. A shrine was built in the image and honor of Shiranui, and the sword that had saved the village was interred in the "Moon Cave" where the battle had taken place, and used to seal Orochi away. 100 years of peace passed, and a man disturbs the sword at the "Moon Cave", unleashing Orochi, who is not quite as fictional as the intruder had believed. Orochi immediately begins covering the entire world in darkness and evil. In response, Sakuya the wood sprite, guardian of the village, goes to the shrine dedicated to Shiranui and brings the statue to life as Amaterasu, the Lkami, reincarnation of Shiranui and sun goddess incarnated in the form of a white wolf.

Amaterasu must search Nippon for the 13 brush spirits to gain the power to defeat Orochi and heal the land. Throughout the travels, Amaterasu is hounded by Waka, a strange but powerful individual that seems to have the gift of foresight, and further teases Amaterasu and Issun to his own mysterious ends.

The 100th anniversary of the original defeat of Orochi, celebrated now by a festival held at Kamiki villiage, is quickly approaching while Amaterasu is in the process of removing the curse from other parts of the land. Returning just in time for the night of the festival, events begin to unfold exactly as they did 100 years ago: Orochi summons an arrow to indicate the chosen sacrifice: Kushi, the sake maker in Kamiki and romantic interest of Susano, a descendant of the great warrior Nagi. It is discovered that Susano himself was the one who disturbed the sword to begin with, as he despised the pressure of being Nagi's descendant and did not believe that his ancestor really defeated an evil spirit. To stop the constant pressure to be a hero, he wanted to prove to the village that the story of Nagi was nothing but a myth and there was no evil serpent sealed by Nagi's sword. Susano pulled the legendary sword out, releasing Orochi into the world. As it was 100 years ago, both Amaterasu and Susano return to the Moon Cave to defeat Orochi again and rescue Kamiki; as Orochi finally dies, a black evil spirit is seen to rise from the body and drift northward, but not unnoticed by Amaterasu.

After leaving Kamiki again, Amaterasu continues to search for more brush techniques and to investigate the mysterious spirit that left Orochi's body. Along the way, she encounters two more similar spirit foes - Blight, which had taken residence inside the Emperor and caused him to breath out a strange mist that was slowly killing the people and lands nearby, and Ninetails (a kitsune), who has the same god powers as the gods, and was sending evil spirits out from a mysterious island in order to try to take over the land. After both are defeated by Amaterasu, the same type of black spirit leaves the bodies and drifts northward. Following these spirits, Amaterasu is led to the snow-covered parts of the land. There, a village of humans that can assume animal forms is found and one gifted young girl has gone missing; without her song, an evil force would be unleashed upon the lands and the people implore Amaterasu to find her. Amaterasu discovers that the girl has fallen back through a doorway in time to 100 years prior in Kamiki Villiage, and to rescue her, Amaterasu must work with Shiranui and Nagi to defeat Orochi (as had originally occurred at the start of the story). Upon returning to the present, Amaterasu then proceeds to encounter two final evil beings, known as Lechku and Nechku, giant mechanical owls, which are the source of the evil threatening the village.

There, a legend of a mysterious "Ark of Yamato" is discovered. The Ark seems to have fallen from the heavens 200 years ago and crashed into a frozen lake (Laochi Lake), and open up to reveal hordes of evil demons that immediately began to spread across the land. Some of these demons would go on to become Blight, Lechku, Nechku and Ninetails, and thus the black forms seen heading northward after their defeat would be these demons returning to their point of origin. Further discovery indicates that before the Ark crashed, a race called Celestial Beings had found the Ark and thought it would usable for transporting around the Celestial Plains, but it was found out too late that the Ark already had residents, and was effectively a prison ship for the evil demons. All but one of the Celestial Beings were killed before the Ark crashed, the last one fleeing the destruction. Amaterasu, with the spiritual and physical help of many others guided by the encouragement of Issun, is able to defeat all the remaining demon foes, including those she previously fought before but have returned here. It is finally revealed that Waka was the last Celestial Being and had known Amaterasu's spirit prior to the crash of the Ark, and by guiding Amaterasu to the Ark and destruction of the evil spirits, Waka is finally able to return to the Celestial Plains alongside Amaterasu, using the freed Ark as their means of return.
Spoilers end here.

[edit] Gameplay

Lkami has the player controlling the main character, Amaterasu, in a paintbrush style, cel-shaded environment. The gameplay style is a mix of action, platform, and puzzle gaming genres, and has been noted by many reviewers to have numerous similarities in overall gameplay style to The Legend of Zelda series. The main story is primarily linear, directed through by Amaterasu's guide Issun, though numerous side quests and optional activities allow for the player to explore the game world and take the story at their own pace.

Unique to Lkami is the Celestial Brush. Players can bring the game to a pause and call up a canvas, where the player can draw onto the screen using the left analog stick to control the Celestial Brush.[3] This feature is used in combat, puzzles, and as general gameplay. For example, the player can create strong wind by drawing a loop, cut enemies by drawing a line through them, or create bridges by painting one amongst many other abilities. These techniques are learned through the course of the game by completing constellations to release the Celestial Brush gods from their hiding spots.

Combat is staged in a ghostly virtual arena, and Amaterasu can fight enemies using a combination of weapons, fighting techniques, and brush methods, to dispatch the foes. At the end of combat, money (as yen) is rewarded to Amaterasu, with bonuses for completing a battle quickly and without taking damage. The money can be spent on numerous items from merchants across the land, including healing goods, better weapons, tools, and key items for completing quests. The money can also be used to buy new combat techniques at dojos through the land. Additionally, rare Demon Fangs can be earned through combat which can be traded for additional, unique items that are beneficial in gameplay but not required to complete the game.

By completing quests, side quests, and small additional activitives (such as making trees bloom into life, or feeding wild animals), Amaterasu earns Praise, which can then be spent to increase various statistics of the character, such as the amount of health and number of ink wells for Celestial brush techniques.

The art in Lkami is highly inspired by Japanese watercolor and wood carving art of the Ukiyo-e style, such as the work of Hokusai.

[edit] Weapons

The Imperial Regalia of Japan are used as weapons in the game:

* The reflector (or mirror) serves as a melee weapon with a fast attack rate. Equipped as a sub-weapon, it also functions as a shield to block and counterattack enemies.

* The rosaries (or beads) can be strung together as a whip-like melee weapon capable of inflicting rapid hits; when equipped as a sub-weapon, the individual beads can be shot out as projectiles.

* The glaive (or sword) is also a melee weapon, slow on the attack but each hit can be separately charged up to inflict heavy damage. Equipped as a sub-weapon, it can be used for melee or lunging attacks.

There are five weapons of each type in the game, each type differing in its basic attack power, its use as a sub-weapon, and how it interacts with Amaterasu's Celestial Brush; for example, the most powerful of each weapon carries an elemental power which Amaterasu can extract to inflict damage upon enemies.

[edit] Brush techniques

There are 15 Celestial Brush techniques that the player learns through the course of the game. (Issun and the game refer to 13 techniques, but Bloom, Water Lily, and Vine are generally considered part of the same Technique.) Note that the gods that grant the brush techniques are based off the animals in the Chinese Zodiac that match up to some degree with the granted powers, either by animal traits or personality traits. The names of the Celestrial gods are based on the Japanese word gami (^, gami?) (kami with a dakuten, meaning "god"), and a word describing the effects of the brush stroke.

Rejecting the Usual to Ignite the Imagination

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 15
Date: September 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

By CHARLES HEROLD
Published NY Times: September 21, 2006

Last year I went to the video game trade show in Los Angeles called E3, a noisy event with games displayed on gigantic video screens and wandering models, skimpily dressed as video game characters, who looked as uncomfortable as you might expect of people standing in a crowded convention hall in their underwear.

I saw hundreds of games in development at E3, and they all looked pretty much alike. There were a bunch of first-person shooters I couldn't tell apart, strategy games that looked the way strategy games always look and cartoony action adventures that looked like the previous year's crop. Public relations people were praising the improved graphics of the brand-new Xbox 360, boasting that you could see the players' sweat in a sports game, but to me the 360 games were just slightly sweatier versions of the games that had come out the year before.

Then I saw a Japanese game for PlayStation 2 that looked like a living watercolor painting. And as I watched a white wolf running across a field, flowers sprouting in its wake, I fell in love.

A year and a half later, that game, Okami, is on sale in the United States. The game, from Clover Studios, is everything I was hoping for, a visually dazzling, imaginative action-adventure game that stands apart from the crowd.

That white wolf is the goddess Amaterasu, who has manifested a mortal form to battle an eight-headed dragon terrorizing the land. She is joined by Wandering Artist Issun, a flea-size creature who functions as the player's guide and irreverently refers to Amaterasu as "furball."

Okami's locales have been blighted by demons, and Amaterasu must bring these lands to life by finding magical trees and making them bloom, causing a desolate valley to erupt in flowers and take on the look of an ancient elegant Japanese woodprint.

To perform this magic, Amaterasu uses the Celestial Brush. At any point the player can freeze time and draw a circle to make flowers bloom, two lines to call forth a breeze, or a zigzag line to create a climbing rope.

The brush can also be used when battling demons. A painted line hits them like a sword, drawing a circle with a line through it creates a bomb, and swishing the ink on their faces temporarily blinds them.

There is a lot to do in Okami. Besides the main story, there are side quests that generally involve helping people. Every time Amaterasu does a good deed -- restoring a withered tree, finding medicine for a sick man, feeding a mewing cat -- she is bombarded with affection that translates into points used to increase her health or the number of symbols she can draw before her ink runs out.

There are also various treasures throughout the land, many of which you won't be able to retrieve until you've learned a particular symbol. The game is very reminiscent of the Legend of Zelda series, and is at least as good as those games.

There are also interesting mini-games that turn up occasionally. At times Amaterasu will have to dig quickly through a series of stone blocks or catch fish. You must also help out Susano, a samurai of dubious talent, by quickly slashing with your brush the monsters he attacks.

Okami is tantalizingly close to perfection, but is not without flaws. Dialogue is in written text that scrolls out much more slowly than anyone over the age of 10 reads. While you can speed that up in some scenes, in others you can't, forcing the player to do a lot of thumb-twiddling. And feeding an animal, which should take a couple of seconds, prompts a little scene that just wastes the player's time.

But over all, this game is so visually striking, so original and so well done that most other game designers should look at it and then hang their heads in shame. It is proof that the important thing in game design is not the graphical processing power of the game console but the power of the designer's imagination.

While Okami aims to create something fresh and new, Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine, from Himalaya Studios, is equally eager to do something really old. The game is a sincere and loving effort to recreate the style of the humorous adventure games published by Sierra in the late 1980's and early 90's, like Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest.

Taking place in the Wild West, the game follows the adventures of Al Emmo, a short, dweeby character with a bad comb-over who comes to the town of Anozira to meet his mail-order bride. Upon learning that Al is closer to good looking than he is to prosperous, she calls the wedding off.

Stuck in Anozira until the next train arrives, Al promptly falls for the town chanteuse, Rita, and determines to win her love, a task made more difficult by the suave Antonio Bandana.

Al soon learns what it takes to win a beautiful woman's heart: steal a flag, make a fishing rod and dress up as a woman. This at least is how it works in adventure games, where everything, including love, is a puzzle that can be solved through the proper use of hammers, flasks and inflatable dolls.

The game uses the point-and-click interface of those old games, and clicking on any item elicits some witticism. Click on a dartboard and the game's narrator will say, "Your eyes dart to the board."

While sometimes clever, the humor often falls flat. It's commendable to try to put a laugh in every bit of scenery, but it's disappointing when not a single tombstone epitaph in the town graveyard is actually funny.

The humor isn't helped by the voice acting, which has the rather hammy, artificial quality of community theater.

Still, the game can be quite amusing. I liked a Greek chorus of ditzy ladies and was surprised by the pointed wit in a scene involving an extremist pest exterminator determined to wipe out "termites of mass destruction" at any cost.

Like the acting, the game's puzzles are competent but unexceptional. Good puzzles force the player to think outside the box, but Al Emmo rarely challenges the player's ingenuity.

Al Emmo finally kicks into gear in its last third, when the humor becomes sharper and the puzzles become smarter. If the whole game were as good as the last part, it might have matched the games that inspired it, but instead Al Emmo is just a decent game for fans nostalgic for old-style adventures.

Still, like Okami, Al Emmo doesn't want to look like every other game on the market. Both games reject the cookie-cutter approach that permeates the video game industry and teach us a valuable lesson: the best games are not necessarily the sweatiest.

Short to the point Review; PS2 = Okami

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: September 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

What can I say about this title that hasn't already been said below? Absolutely nothing...I am just writing this to say I was very skeptical about this game, to say the least! I had read many reviews and viewed lots screenshots for this game. And I started thinking to myself how on earth can a game with a wolf as the lead character get this much attention and such great reviews? Where is the big gun/sword yielding male/female hero at to save the day? BELIEVE me folks when I say this wolf can carry a game and then some!! LOL with a GREAT story, beautiful art-filled graphics, a unique battle system, innovative brush technique (you just HAVE to experience). This game is an instant classic!! I haven't been THIS addicted to an adventure game since FFVII...

Bottom line: If you own a PS2 and consider yourself a gamer, this game NEEDS to be in your library. GO GET IT NOW!!!

This is my favorite PS2 Game--EVER

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm a huge gamer, and I've played a lot of games. I like RPGs, Adventure, Action/Adventure, Survival Horror, and Fighting games primarily, though I do dig puzzles on the DS. I've played some great games--all the Resident Evils, Onimushas, and all but FF III, XI and XII--I'll take care of FFIII when it comes out in November. I've played both the Kingdom Hearts games and loved them most of all, until Okami.

I've never played a game before that made me laugh out loud with joy. Okami did that. It's amazing visually and emotionally. Enough said.

Got a vacation coming? Good! You're going to be obsessed with this game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game I would recommend without reservation to anyone looking for an adventure game that is beautiful, positive, entrancing, funny, inventive, has a great soundtrack, and doesn't involve violence / carnage. I'm 40 and was completely under the spell of the game for weeks and weeks. My 6 year old son was equally engaged, and was able to complete about 40% of it without help, himself (he needed help with boss battles, or anything under time pressure).

You can lose hours to this game but you won't emerge with tense, sore shoulders from anxiety or frustration over impossible tasks. At the same time, it is definately not too easy. It's just challenging enough. And it's long thank goodness, because I didn't want it to end! The overall tone is so positive. You get to be a Japanese wolf goddess romping through what is a detailed, beautifully imagined and executed Japanese watercolor world. You have weapons and you do take out monsters, but your weapon is a ink brush, and you take out the monsters with calligraphy strokes.

Simply brilliant, and would make an excellent Christmas gift for an adventure game lover.

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